Once again, the Dryden Courier sparkles as the one place in town to find in-depth news on the Town of Dryden. One issue of the Courier is easily worth two weeks of the Ithaca Journal or Cortland Standard. Of course, lots of people still don't know it exists, but they should.
The front page leads with an article on the Dryden school district's hiring of Castallo & Silky, a school superintendent search firm, as they look for a permanent superintendent. For $13,000, they hope to find a new superintendent by April.
There's also an article on Dryden Town Councilman David Makar's efforts to shift the Town's electricity-buying to renewables, especially wind, following the model of Caroline. In Caroline, local residents donate to make up the difference in cost between wind energy and regular coal-based service.
The cover picture is of Nadia Shevchenko reading at the Southworth Library, which page 15 notes received a recent grant to buy children's books.
Inside, the opinion page has a tale from Managing Editor Bill Chaisson on people helping out when his pipes froze, and his looking forward to helping them out next time. I'm glad to have only had one frozen pipe, caused by an unexpectedly open window, which we caught in time to avoid damage. I'm glad to hear it worked out for him, and hopefully we can all support each other when these things happen.
The Village of Dryden police logs from January 20th to February 10th bulge with traffic violations, plus a bit of petit larceny.
In sports, there's a report of Dryden boys basketball's victory over Elmira Notre Dame, as well as a third-place finish for boys swimming at the Interscholastic Athletic Conference.
There's a lot more detail on TC3's shifting from security guards to peace officers carrying guns than I've seen elswhere, including discussion of the impact of new dormitories and the Virginia Tech shooting last year. They will be hiring a director of public safety as well.
In View From A Dryden Window, Kelly Horrocks visits Southworth Library. She's completely correct when she writes:
The Southworth Library stands in the center of Dryden as arguably the loveliest edifice in town, but also as an object that defies physics. It is seemingly bigger on the inside than on the outside.
She notes a number of Southworth Library services, including the Traveling Books program, which takes books to daycare centers in large canvas bags.
In Ancedotes and Brevities, Harry Weldon talks about William Seward's failed hopes to become the Republican nominee for President in 1860, waiting at home in Auburn for news that didn't quite work out. It reminded me that my great-grandmother was apparently fired on her first day working at the Seward House, then owned by Seward's son. Unused to such a fine place, she mistook a spittoon for a vase and place it on the mantel. That didn't go over well, and may explain why my family has had few Republicans.
More recently, I learned (thanks to Mark Robinson up in Groton) that there's another piece to that story - Brigham Young, Mormon patriarch, apparently built that mantel while working as a young carpenter in Auburn. Upstate New York: it's where everything's connected.
Posted by simon at February 16, 2008 4:32 PM in Dryden Courier , Upstate , energy , history , schools (Dryden)